Part 13

Inside the dressing room, which had been transformed into a powder room for the guests, a pompous creature was seated at the vanity. “Beulah” was a retired manufacturer with a great deal of money in the bank, but no penchant for spending it. In fact, she was known to drive the sharpest bargain for “trade” of any of her sisters, never carrying more than a quarter in her pocket when she cruised. Nor did her pick-up have to be presentable, for she worked the doughnut shift. “They’re all the same,” she used to say sententiously. “Just throw a sack over it, and shoo it out before dawn.... And never give them breakfast,” she would caution, if permitted. “It spoils them.” Whenever the fleet was in, she would go into retirement. She would lock all her doors and keep her butler on a kind of sentry duty, not even admitting a hallboy who might have an idle moment. As far as the fleet was concerned, no one quite understood Beulah’s strange reaction. But it was established fact that once, avoiding her usual care, she had sneaked away to the drugstore for a soda. Intent upon her guzzling, she had failed to notice a sailor who had sat down close beside her. But upon turning her head and seeing the man in uniform, Beulah had let out a shriek, her eyeballs had rolled upward and she had fainted dead away. Some said that doubtless it had been some frightful experience which had given her this strange allergy. “It must _simply_ have put her in stitches!” one of her friends had observed.... As for the hallboys, it was true, she never paid them well; but there were always things to be picked up, and Beulah’s eyes were failing. The hallboys loved her for this little infirmity, and never took anything more than they felt was honestly due. Altogether, Beulah was regarded as a rather queer, but decidedly powerful person in her set; and no young debutante could expect a successful coming out unless Beulah was behind her—which she usually was.

Thus Drewena realized the value of this social contact for Carrie if the young girl was to spend much time in New York.

“You look awfully nice this evening, Beulah,” she said. “What are you doing out here all alone?”

“Powdering my face like _mad_,” Beulah answered, daintily packing the rich powder into the sore jaw and chin where she had shaved too closely. “Those faggots outside are dishing me to death. Just wait till I go in, though. They’ll stop their cackling!”

Drewena led Carrie to her by the hand.

“Beulah,” she said, “I want you to take Carrie under your wing to-night. She may not be in New York long and I want her to have a grand evening. I’ll want her part of the time, when I’m not going the rounds.”

Beulah lifted her sagging, experienced face to Carrie, who stood there, fluttering slightly. Then the dowager graciously held out both her hands.

“I’ll show you the _best_ people, dearie,” she said. “Just hold on to your old auntie’s arm and we’ll see if there isn’t some trade in sheep’s clothing. And by the way,” she added, smiling shrewdly in the sunless room, “is that little bitch, Kate, going to be here? I’ve made a vow to do that one! She can’t fool these old professional eyes—tired though they may be.”

Drewena laughed.

“Yes, Beulah, she’s here. And quite beautiful too, in green. She just got back from Chili—some kind of an electrical engineering project.”

“‘Project,’ my grandmother!—rest her bones.” Beulah sniffed. “Doing the Indians again—what she sees in _them_ is beyond me! But the hussy _is_ interesting.” Beulah swished the bow at her back, spread the wide skirts of her lavender gown and opened a long black ostrich feather fan. Breathing deeply, so that her large bust swelled out, she followed Drewena out of the room, taking Carrie on her arm.

“There she is,” she whispered hoarsely, and the old lady stopped to glance covetously at Kate.

Kate was dressed in a green velvet gown of a deep jade cast. Her necklace was of intercircled loops of jade as was her linked green bracelet. The earrings were slender pendants of the same hue and stone. With this ensemble she was bound to use a cautious make-up—her skin, tanned by the flat sun of the Andes, being almost enough. Only a dark red splash across her lips, as though she had been recklessly eating cherries, seemed a necessary cosmetic. Her black hair was curled bewitchingly, up from the forehead and sides. When she saw Beulah, she beckoned wildly and the green purse which hung from her arm banged against a punchbowl which was near the tiny bar.

“Common!” someone said in a stage whisper, but Kate only laughed and crooked her finger at Beulah again, who strode forward with aggressive, formidable steps, half dragging Carrie.

“Have a drink, darlin’?” asked Kate, looking up at the dowager.

“Thank you, my dear,” said Beulah, in an affected voice. “It’s _so_ sweet of you to ask me.”

Kate ladled out two drinks. As she handed one to Carrie, she said, “That’s a lovely gown, honey. Drewena told me you made it yourself. Why don’t you drop around at my place some time next week and show me how you do it?”

Beulah coughed slightly and pinched Carrie’s arm.

Kate turned to her with another glassful of punch.

“Here you are, dear,” she said. “It will be good for you.” But she was thinking, “I’ll bet it’s the first free drink she’s had in months!” Aloud, Kate spoke again. “And now, darlin’, _do_ have another.”

Beulah nodded graciously, her eyes a little brighter.

Kate thought once more, “You old bitch! I hope you choke on it and get as blue as blue can be!”

“Kate, dearie,” said Beulah, after her fourth, “there’s just the right touch of bitters to the bottle—it makes one have a feeling of heavenly bliss!”

Kate smiled and thought, “You don’t know a good drink from a bad one. You just take all you can get, and that’s all you know. You might have been pretty in your day—but your blooming days are past forever.”

At this moment, a splendid creature bore down upon them, all sails set. She was a broad-shouldered fellow, whose snappy skirts and impudent coiffure failed to cover her intention.

“Mercy!” she exclaimed. “Just dishing it!”

Kate took a whisky straight and smiled at the “debbie” in a tantalizing fashion.

“To think,” said Kate, “a moment ago there wasn’t a piece of trade in sight! I was just hoping.”

The big girl turned around and looked back over her shoulder.

“Oh!” she cried in an obligato, “you New Yorkers _can_ be so bitchy!” Then she sailed on and rounded the turn to the powder-room.

“Dirt!” said Beulah.

“Tawdry!” exclaimed Carrie.

“From Boston?” asked Beulah.

“No, Baltimore,” answered Kate. “Working up from the bottom in her father’s steel mill, I believe. That’s where she got the muscles. The thick head came naturally though.” Kate opened her purse and took out a small bottle of perfume from which she removed the stopper. Shaking a few drops of the scent on her fingers, she touched them to her ears and throat, patting the remaining moisture on the imperceptible beard around her chin.

Just then, Patsy’s familiar voice announced “Miss Roberts.”

Drewena was standing by the door as the newcomer, somber of face even through her high, natural coloring, and as Drewena thought, all the more beautiful because of her stone-like gravity, entered the drawing room; for, dressed in a cunningly fashioned gown of silver cloth, she looked more like an impassioned Joan of Arc in mailed armor than a modern executive of lives. Around her throat lay her mother’s string of black pearls, and her hands were encased in an unusual muff of blue fox.

“I’m so glad you came after all, Roberta,” said the hostess quietly. “You have been keeping too much to yourself, and I’m sure that you’ll have a little fun to-night. Carrie is here—she’s the most amusing camp! And Kate, and Beulah, and Docky——”

“Damn them all!” interrupted Roberta. “Take me to that corner over there where no one is standing.”

Drewena saw the painful expression on her face and nodded agreement, sitting down with her for a moment.

“Is Martin coming to-night?” asked Roberta nervously.

“Why, yes,” said Drewena. “That is, I think so. I sent him a note, urging him to be here. I have such a pretty name for him.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” answered Roberta, a little absently, tapping her silver slipper against the side of her chair. “Is Rio coming?”

“Indeed not,” said Drewena, amazed at the question. “Ask that man up?—I should say not!”

“‘Man’—my petticoat!” observed Roberta. “What’s the matter with you, Drewena? _That_ one is dashed for fair! Her hard-boiled act doesn’t fool me a bit. She’s a damned _poseur_ and as full of bitchery as——”

“Stop shaking,” broke in Drewena. “For heaven’s sake! All the cats are beginning to gossip about the way you’re acting. See old Docky talking with her hand over her mouth? She knows perfectly well that I can read lips. If she hadn’t been a splendid surgeon in her day and attended my father years ago, I should never have invited her.”

And Docky was saying to the more elderly group clustered around her at this moment, “It’s shameful the way Roberta monopolizes Drewena’s time. In a way though, one can’t blame her. For dearies, Roberta hasn’t long to be a queen at the rate _she’s_ going!” Docky pulled her shawl more tightly about her neck.

“What _is_ wrong with her, Docky?” asked one rather vapid, sweet-faced auntie. “Is she sick?”

At this, Docky raised her lorgnette and looked at the speaker, a quiver of amusement lacing her cheeks back and forth until it seemed they would have met if her nose hadn’t kept them apart.

“Precious!” She lifted her hand. Enormous jewels sparkled and flickered on every finger. “_I_ wouldn’t know. I haven’t been out with her since she was a child—ah!” Docky breathed. “Those halcyon days!”

Back in the corner Drewena sighed.

“If you won’t, you won’t, Roberta; but it looks like intrigue, and I hate intrigue. You’re positive you won’t give even a short number? I wish you’d read one of your own lovely poems. You did, last year, and they’ll expect it. Of course, if you won’t, I’ll send Carrie over to keep you company during the program.”

“Not unless you want a murder at your drag,” said Roberta in such a menacing voice that Drewena started, then watched her guest for a moment until the fire was out of Roberta’s eyes, and some of the hatred expressed on her face had dissipated.

“Roberta,” she said at last, “if you are ill, you should go home. It would be doing both of us a kindness.”

“I’m not sick,” said Roberta evenly.

“Why do you hate Carrie so much?” persisted Drewena.

“Don’t talk like that,” said Roberta, in despair. “It’s just that she _thinks_ of Martin. She thinks of him in a terrible way. Please don’t question me further.” Roberta opened her compact, studied herself in the tiny mirror and powdered her face lightly, smoothing away the lines from her forehead and looking with detachment at the shadows under her eyes. Drewena took her hand for an instant and held it tightly before she left. But as she walked toward the punchbowl with its merry company, there was an intimate, definite foreboding and a striking glance of prescience from her heavy-lidded eyes. Her appearance was so exotic, so provocative, that when Kate offered her a drink, she wanted to offer her a kiss as well.

The widows around Docky, however, were still discussing Roberta.

“Look at her,” said Daisy, the pretty one. “Holding her jaws down at the side in that manner. If I were half so pretty as she, I wouldn’t hide in the corner like that.”

“I’ll _bet_ you wouldn’t,” yawned Docky, grasping her upper plate, as she had a horror of swallowing it.

Again Patsy’s high voice rang out, this time against the music of the orchestra.

“Miss Devaud,” she bawled.

Drewena’s face grew whiter as she went gracefully but swiftly to the arch-like entrance to greet the new arrival, whose perfect casting—the unusual make-up against the wheat-colored hair, against the long, pale yellow dress, against the turquoise of her eyes, and the strong, uneven modeling of her features brought the hostess to a stop before she reached her guest.

“Beautiful Miriam,” she whispered.

Miriam contemplated Drewena without expression, though enjoying her beauty far more than she liked to admit. While Drewena was thinking in confusion how and where to get her friend alone—away from the others who would spoil her with their eyes—yes, with their thoughts, as Roberta had said. If she, Drewena, could only touch her once—could only hold her.... So taking her guest by the hand, she quickly pulled her back into the hall.

“Come upstairs for a moment, Miriam,” she whispered hoarsely. “You must have earrings to make you perfect. I have some of jet that will make you lovelier than ever!” They ascended the wide spiral staircase.

Carrie ran after them. On the bottom step she paused. As they disappeared around a bend in the stairs, Carrie clung tightly to the newel post. Then turning, her eyes wide, she stepped down and hurried to Beulah.

Roberta, sitting in her corner, saw all this, and the rapidity with which she changed coloring caused old Docky to chuckle something about adrenalin. But Roberta was really acting strangely. She seemed ready to leave her chair, then at intervals would pull something halfway out of her muff. Docky could not quite see, for Roberta covered the object cleverly. Each movement, however, was hesitant, until finally, with a certain air of fatalism, Roberta settled down in a rigid posture which she maintained for some time.

Upstairs, Drewena opened a door beyond the staircase, and led Miriam out on the terrace. Saturn was in conjunction with the frozen moon. Midway between the zenith and the horizon, the moon, as if by some prearrangement lightened Drewena’s white face until her beauty would have been nebulous had she not been pressed so closely to her friend. Miriam’s face, however, had caught the amber tone of the planet, and her cheeks seemed flushed as though by moonburn. Drewena pulled her inside again and sat beside her on the bed. She turned out the indirect lights and lay down, her head on Miriam’s lap. The moon shone upon them brightly.

“Miriam,” she said, “is that a halo around your head, dearest?”

“It’s the moon in the fuzz of my wig,” answered Miriam seriously.

Drewena sighed. “How I wish,” she said, “that we could have stayed out on the terrace!—Perhaps we can come up here after the guests have gone.... This bed is so deep and wide, we’ll cool off quickly.... And to-morrow we can go to a little cottage I have up on the coast near Cape Cod.... We’ll listen to the wind—and there’ll be snow, and the surf breaking on the rocks under our doorstep.... You’ll carry a lamp to help me to my bed. I want to be dependent on you—oh! you understand!” Drewena put her gentle hands on Miriam’s cheeks. “They’re hot, Miriam. Perhaps you are excited, too—perhaps I won’t have to go away as I told Tai! He’s my little protegé! I’ll send him to France with his tutor.... My dearest, tell me that I needn’t go!”

Miriam petted her gently and explained quite simply that of course she didn’t have to leave; but when that was said, she kept repeating, “Go!—go!—go!—” continuing to blend the words until they became untranslatable.

Drewena looked at her in astonishment.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Those words—they have a cadence that makes me feel insane—Please don’t talk like that!... Dear God!—All I ask is that you bear with me. I’d never cheat Deane. It’s on a different plane. Quite different. Kiss my lips, Miriam—I’m tired—so tired.”

“Aye,” said Miriam gently, “that I _can_ do! For you’re as sweet a little maiden as I’ve ever seen, lying so in the moonlight.” And bending over, she pressed her lips upon Drewena’s. The white-tinted hair fell over her shoulders and Drewena shuddered as Deane had shuddered. There was no distaste, for Drewena lay quietly now in Miriam’s arms, only a slight, convulsive movement betraying her passion. Then Miriam sat up and leaned away as though into the moon; for a feeling had come over her during that kiss that she could not interpret. It was a half sick, half desirous mood of great intensity. And so, unaccustomed to tempering her emotions, she threw Drewena back upon the bed and held her tightly, her mouth pressing on her throat. Drewena did not resist until the desire had grown and Miriam groped blindly. Then quickly Drewena struggled away and as quickly turned on the lamps.

“Not now,” she laughed, a splendid light in her eyes. “Later—after the party. Oh,” she exclaimed, bending toward her friend, “it’s the heaven I thought I’d never find—the soul, the mind, the body.... But now, we must hurry and touch ourselves up.” And she hung the long, jet pendants from Miriam’s ears. So the gowns were smoothed out, the hair recombed and pinned, the make-up applied anew.

When at last they entered the drawing room there was only the faintest buzzing of interest among the more intrepid of the gossipers. Even this ceased as Drewena, her arm linked closely in Miriam’s, stopped at various groups to introduce her friend. Docky stopped chattering just long enough to size up Miriam’s figure.

“Miriam, my dear,” she said at once, “if I’d known _you_ were coming, I’d have worn my new gown of cardinal red. To think!—you see me in the faded splendor of this musty blue! You must come and chat with us this evening.” She looked at Miriam intently and pulled her shawl even tighter. Then she smiled, a good deal of understanding and more than that, compassion, expressed in her face. When Drewena took Miriam with her to the punchbowl, Beulah turned on Docky in a fury.

“Only past sixty, and you’re back to childhood! I could scratch your eyes out! Miriam is simply lovely, and now you’ve driven her away!”

“There, there,” Docky said, in her best professional tone. “It’s just as well—Drewena loves him.”

“‘Him’?” screeched Daisy, fascinated.

“Don’t get so excited, Daisy. Remember your blood pressure,” said Docky calmly. “Of course, ‘him’! The boy’s as jam as the preserves you used to steal off your mother’s shelf!”

“Absurd!” said Beulah. “She has a _grand_ dash!”

“On the edge, dearie, but he’s never fallen off, and I doubt if he ever will. The habit pattern has unfortunately fixated him for women. Ah!—if I could have had him to mold some years ago!”

“_‘Jam’!_” cried Daisy once more, her hands to her ears.

Docky pushed back the wisps of gray hair from her forehead and took out her left eye, wiping it carefully.

“Mercy!” said Beulah. “_Must_ you do that in company?” She tossed her head angrily. “And don’t tell us how you lost your real one at Ypres! There!” She pointed swiftly toward the punchbowl. “I _knew_ it! Kate is trying to snitch Miriam from Drewena!”

“Common!” said the same sepulchral voice that had uttered this word before.

Everyone turned around to see who had repeated it, but there was no one in sight. Docky chuckled.

Kate was speaking vivaciously to Miriam until she caught Drewena’s eye, whereupon she merely shrugged her strong bare shoulders and turned petulantly away. The moment of ensuing silence was broken by Patsy’s high-pitched tremulo, which seemed to be growing weaker.

“Miss Murphy!” she shouted feebly.

Miss Murphy did not wait for Drewena’s welcome. She flew into the room in a state of deshabille, her black lace dress torn slightly on the shoulder, her corsage of gardenias darkening around the edges as though they had been crushed in a heavy fist.

“Oh, my God!” she said, breathing heavily as Drewena comforted her.

Kate stole a glance at Miriam and whispered, “Doing the taxis again!” Then she took a glass to the newcomer.

“Drink this, Sophie,” she began, when the other turned on her, stamping her foot and pulling the torn lace back over her shoulder.

“Don’t you _dare_ offer me any of that sickening, frothy slop!” she cried. “I want a straight one, or I’ll just _die_!”

Kate lifted the glass and drained it.

“‘It was good enough for mother, and it’s good enough for me,’” she quoted sweetly. But Drewena called for a glassful of whisky and handed it to Sophie who began to drink it greedily.

Docky had her hand over her mouth again and was leaning toward Beulah.

“Don’t look now,” she said. “Sophie’s watching us like _mad_. I’ll bet she thinks we’re dishing her.”

“Well, dearie,” said Beulah, her hand covering her lips also, “she’s right. But I won’t smile, and don’t you _dare_ look now.”

But Docky went on, the rest of the group straining toward her, for no one could dish like Docky.

“My God, Beulah,” she said, “they speak of _courage_ in history. But she has a _nerve_ to come here in _that_ lace!”

“‘Lace’!” Beulah appeared shocked. “She bought that netting at the ten cent store to cover her trade with, when she gets that Cleopatrine feeling! No _wonder_ all the cab drivers around Pennsylvania Station are looking tired these days!”

“Shish!” said Docky. “Look now, dearie. She’s terrible from the front. Do you notice her fallen chest?... And what do you think of the back? And oh!—what ugly hands! I’m sure those hands have snitched many pieces of silver in _her_ time!”

“I don’t care how much silver she has snitched,” said Beulah, “but I _do_ hope she’ll keep her dirty mitts off Miriam. Really, Docky, you don’t honestly believe that Miriam might be jam, now do you?”

Docky leaned over and spoke into Beulah’s ear.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I’m really sure. I really shouldn’t have told you, but since you have thrown so much my way in the past——”

“Christ!” said Daisy, fidgeting with her lavaliere. “Sophie really makes me ill. She always looks as though she’s straight from the washtub.”

“True,” said Docky, “from the shanty on the other side of the tracks. It’s a shame for her to have money, with me dodging creditors like _mad_! Look at her trying to be elegant, wiping her nose with her soft, raggy wrist—and dearie, her nose isn’t running from a cold. _That_ one’s been broken down for years and years. Old saddley ass! She looks as though she had three pillows in her rear!”

“It _is_ indecent,” agreed Beulah. “And she doesn’t have fallen arches for nothing. She’s been cruising _most_ of her life.”

“That she has!” said Docky. “My God!” Docky leaned forward excitedly. “She’s picking up her skirts! Do you see those varicose veins on her leg? They stand out like the knots on a pinetree!”

Drewena was now urging Sophie to give the first “number” of the evening. But Sophie, partly drunk from her brief, but thrilling escapade with the cab driver, kept showing a bruise on her shoulder.

“It hit me! The person really hit me! It was all over that cage I brought for my number. Will you have Patsy bring me the cage I left with her? I’ll be in the powder room.”

When she had gone, Drewena explained to Miriam that each guest always gave a little act.

Miriam was thunderstruck.

“I don’t know anything to do. It’s impossible for me.”

“Just anything,” said Drewena, with composure. “It doesn’t have to be much.”

Miriam thought a moment, observing the heavy beam above her, the high ceiling and the shadows.

“Was that Tai whom I saw peeping out into the hall a moment ago? The child looked Indo-Chinese. If you’d lend him to me....”

“I can’t risk the child,” said Drewena slowly. “His father nursed me. And next to you, Miriam, I love him better than anyone but Deane.” Drewena gave a queer smile. “_She_ has a portion of the roundtable of my mind that no one, not even you, my dearest, can fathom.”

“I won’t hurt the child,” said Miriam earnestly. “He’ll think it’s a lot of fun. You can see what I’ll do!”

“It isn’t that,” said Drewena, flushing. Then, “All right. Tai is yours for the trick. What else do you need?”

“A man with powerful shoulders, and a rope,” said Miriam. “And have the orchestra play loudly while I work.”

Suddenly Drewena laughed.

“Oh, you are really good!—I see it now. You’ve always just pretended to be an impossible person. I believe you’d cry easily.”